How do you market your business at Christmas when your service isn’t seasonal? A Christmas blog sounds like a great idea but what on earth do you talk about? If the problem you solve could come up at any time of year, you might find yourself struggling to make it festive.
The good news is you just need a bit of lateral thinking. You might also need a writer who doesn’t work in your business every day.
The client
The client came to me through an SEO expert they’d been working with to improve their search rankings. They’re expert locksmiths based in Scotland and serving a clear geographical area, so their SEO campaign was helping them to build their local reputation. They wanted to let local people know about their employee credentials and show why their service was better than the competition.
They were already starting to see results and then came the question of the Christmas blog.
The challenge
The great thing about being a locksmith is that people could need your services all year round. This is good for business but not so great for your Christmas marketing. Do you ignore Christmas altogether or try to include it? The client had only just started blogging and didn’t want to lose momentum. They also realised that a Christmas blog would be more likely to attract readers. The question is, how do you make it interesting and relevant to your audience?
The Christmas blog solution
Luckily for the locksmiths, they were working with me, a writer with a strong lateral thinking streak. It turns out that people lock themselves out of their houses much more often at Christmas, simply because they’re distracted or out of their normal routine. There’s also the increased risk of burglary when your house is full of presents. We talked about simple solutions and included details of what a locksmith could help with. It was helpful and sent a clear message.
So, there you have it – a Christmas blog for a non-Christmassy business. If I can help you to create one of your own, email me or book your no-obligation discovery call here.
You love what you do, and you are happiest at work doing all those things you love, but how much time is all the admin that comes with it taking? Is it leaving you drained and robbing you of your weekends and evenings that you’d really like to spend with family or friends and have a break from the job? Worse still, is it keeping you awake at night?
Apart from the fact that most of us have to earn a living to keep a roof over our heads, everyone is driven with different goals and dreams, to earn a certain amount, to have that dream house, to move to a certain area, buy that nice car, or to be able to travel are just a few. How lucky you are to be able to do that doing what you love to do.
Why I got started
After a health scare and a wakeup call, I am driven by time. I know just how precious time is and no amount of money can buy it.
This is where I get the passion to do the role I do. Taking away all the time-consuming admin jobs from my clients gives them back time to use more productively and frees up time so they can enjoy the weekend and evening as they wish. By achieving work life balance, they will feel more in control and less stressed and enjoy life and enjoy the success they have worked so hard to achieve.
Why you might need a VA
Outsourcing to a VA is not easy to do, your business is your baby, and no one else can do it as well as you can, damn right they can’t – but is your business doing the admin?
Cash flow is the most important thing in your business, when you can see clearly where you stand, what monies are coming in and what monies are going out, then business/cash flow improves.
Sending invoices out in time and chasing up late payments is the first thing that improves your cash flow, yet the longer you put this off the more overwhelming it gets = bad for cash flow.
If you are too busy to check your emails and you miss all important orders and enquiries, then again this will affect your cash flow as you will not have invoices to send, so no cash flow.
A good VA can be your accountability buddy, someone that wants to see you succeed, and will do everything they can to help you achieve your goals. She is not a competitor. She is someone who you can bounce ideas off and someone who will make suggestions, she is totally on your side.
It may take a little while to find that “right VA” for you, just as every business is different and has different needs, so is every VA.
Why I love my work
I love working with my clients. Once we have done a bit of brainstorming, have systems in place that work for them and have everything organised, they feel that they’re back in control. Having gained their trust they know that all the admin behind the scenes is in safe hands, that is when I see their business thriving. The client is less stressed, so much happier and enjoying their business. When they have their evening and weekends free to do as they wish then I know that I am doing my role well and that I have achieved what I want from my job.
How nice to be able to kick off your shoes, sit back and relax knowing that all those boring admin chores are being sorted. One happy you and one happy VA.
Kirsty’s note
Ann is a brilliant VA (I can personally recommend her). If you think you might need some support, you can get in touch with Ann here:
Is your business seasonal? You might have one of those businesses that gets incredibly busy in the run up to Christmas, so it makes sense to focus your marketing attention there. Maybe it’s less obvious, but if you look closer you might find patterns that repeat themselves across the year. Creating seasonal content for your business is a great way to stay in touch with what your customers need at any given time. If you can tune in to the things they’re thinking about you can talk about them in your marketing. Your customers trust you because you’ve shown you understand them and you’re much more likely to make a sale. How do you spot the seasonal elements in your business? Step this way…
Do you have a peak season?
Some businesses have a clear peak season. It could be Christmas for retailers or summer holiday sales for travel agents. (Of course, those bookings might start on Boxing Day.) Your business might have more consistent sales throughout the year, but with customers buying different things at different times. Think seasonal skincare – you might sell more sunscreen in the summer and more hand cream for fingers chapped by the cold in winter. What do your customers need as the seasons change?
Focus on a seasonal issue
Are there things that your customers only need help with at a specific time of year? For me and my primary age kids the long summer holiday has always been a challenge (though home school has made it feel like a picnic). Do you offer the solution to seasonal childcare challenges, buying the perfect Christmas present or getting the tax return in by the deadline? Show your customers that you have the solution to the thing they’re stressed about and they’ll love you.
Look at your best sellers
You might have products or services that people can buy whenever they like, but when do they actually buy? You could join a gym in November, but there’s something symbolic about a new year that spurs people into action. The same probably applies to books that help you discover the ‘new you’. Using these patterns in your marketing doesn’t just help you to sell more. It allows you to help the people who are already buying, by offering extra hints and tips.
Consider seasonal trends
If your business has been going for a while you might have a whole load of information about the way your customers behave. But what if you don’t? Maybe you’re a new business, have never collected much data or just haven’t spotted any patterns. Google Trends is your friend. Learning more about when people search for information helps you to target your marketing around the things they’re searching for. Visit Google Trends and search for keywords that relate to your business.
Other important dates
You can build your marketing content around almost anything seasonal. Talk about gifts for Valentine’s Day, Mothering Sunday or Easter. If your business has a sporting element you can focus on the major tournaments. There are increasing numbers of awareness days/weeks/months that you can talk about. One plea from me if you take this approach – please make sure it’s relevant. I’d rather hear from a brilliant baker on National Cake Day than from someone who just likes eating it.
I’m one of those people who always wanted to be a writer, even if it wasn’t always the only thing I did. I’ve shared the story behind leaving my old career and starting a new one before, but I’ve never really talked about the reasons I started writing in the first place. It’s been a constant in my life for as long as I can remember. Here’s how it all began.
Surrounded by books
My mum always jokes that I had a library before I was born. It’s pretty close to the truth. My grandpa worked for Brockhampton Press, which was the children’s book division of Hodder and Stoughton at the time. They published classics like Asterix and The Magic Roundabout, with Papa being responsible for book fairs. One of my favourite stories is the one where he got pulled over by the police pulling a Roman chariot up to Harrogate. He wasn’t in trouble, they just wanted to know why. His job meant that I grew up surrounded by books. What’s more, I knew from an early age that being a writer was something you could do for a living. It left a lasting impression.
Creating my own stories
I know that we all have to write stories at school, but I was the kid that just kept going. As a teenager I filled endless notebooks and devoured books to learn more about how to create a good plot. Whenever I had to wait somewhere or spent time on a train my notebook came out as a form of entertainment. I was once on a train, mid-story, when I ran out of paper and ended up finishing my tale on the back of a sandwich bag. Some of the stories were good – I was shortlisted for a prize for young radio playwrights a couple of times. Others were dreadful, simply because they were too simplistic. It was time for a change.
Finding something else to do
The main problem with my teenage writing was the problem every teenager has – I just hadn’t lived long enough. I loved crime fiction and came up with plots that needed to be populated with believable characters. The best crime writing is born out of a solid grasp of human nature and the ways in which relationships can go wrong. I just didn’t have it. I realised that to become a good writer I needed to go out into the world and get some experience. That’s what eventually lead me into a legal career. Ironically, the thing that first attracted me to the law was the fact that there were so many good stories in it. Obviously, there was also crime, although that’s not where I ended up working.
Coming back to writing
As the years passed, I told myself that I wanted to write but I was spending less and less time actually writing. Then I heard an interview with P.D. James, who wrote her books around a full-time job and raising three children alone after her husband’s death. When asked why she had continued with her writing, she replied that if she had found herself telling her that ‘what I always wanted to do was write’, she would have felt that her life had failed in a very important way. Her answer has stayed with me because I feel the same. I realised that if I was going to write I just had to get on and do it. So that’s what I do now.
Can I help you to share your story in your marketing? Book your call here and let’s have a chat. Alternatively, you can sign up to my mailing list for blogging and marketing tips straight to your inbox every month.
One of the best things about working in a creative industry is the fact that it gives me opportunities to work as part of a team. The other one is working one to one with clients, but they’re vastly different experiences. A collaboration for me often comes about when one of my website designing friends creates a new website (or redesigns an old one) for one of their clients. They don’t do the wordy bits so if the client doesn’t already have someone in mind, they send them in my direction. I love it because I know there’s already a clear vision for the site so I can jump straight in. It’s brilliant when another creative brain has already got things started because it sparks so many ideas in me.
All of which brings me to another kind of project. When I first ventured out of the (frankly boring) world of corporate networking and into drinking coffee with creatives I hadn’t considered working with people who make films for businesses. I kind of assumed that they’d already have people who are good at that sort of thing. What I didn’t expect was a collaboration that took video and turned it into something else.
The project
If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’re probably already familiar with local initiatives that encourage business growth. I’ve seen everything from funding schemes to education projects. Beyond the obvious benefits to local businesses and regional growth, projects like this have one other massive advantage. It gives the people offering the scheme the opportunity to shout about how great they are. A Leicestershire based agency had been offering grants and loans to local businesses. The funding enabled them to secure premises or buy new equipment that allowed them to grow. There were lots of positive stories. Clearly, everyone involved wanted to get the word out.
The marketing
The marketing plan had several different strands, taking in both online and offline marketing. A video agency had already interviewed businesses who’d benefitted from funding and creating short films to share online. They just needed to turn the stories into a form that would also work in print. That’s where I came in. I took the transcriptions of the interviews and turned them into good news stories that could be shared online, via social media and even in printed mail outs to other local businesses.
The whole initiative was so successful that it’s happening again. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I get to put together another collaboration and share some of the stories again this time round!
If I can help you to share your story in a new way, book your call here and let’s have a chat.
When I started my business in 2015 I thought all I needed was a logo and some business cards and my branding would be sorted. I had a huge list of “To Dos” and branding was something that I could put a big tick next to.
I was good at this business lark!
Then, when I started to read more about marketing the words Ideal Client kept coming up…
Who is your ideal client? Which product would your ideal client choose? Where can you find your ideal client?
The answers were easy. Everybody was my ideal client, so they’d like all of the products and they were everywhere. Move on.
But it continued to come up time and time again so I decided to do some research into this whole branding thing.
Turns out, a business is way more successful when they have a clear message and how do they create a clear message? Through having an ideal client and a strong brand. Not only are businesses more successful, decision-making becomes much easier too.
So when we use the term branding what are we talking about exactly? We are talking about the overall message that a business conveys. Some key elements (but not all) are the logo, the colours used, the fonts, the language and importantly; the imagery.
I will touch on each area below:-
Message
Who do you want to attract? Who is going to buy your product or service? A 20 year old man is likely to be attracted to a very different brand to a 75 year old woman.
Logo
Should it be clean and simple? Bold and colourful? Monochrome? Do you include a motif? Any words? Do you have more than 1 logo?
Colours
Did you know that colours carry very strong messages with them? Red can suggest passion, excitement and importance, whereas Green can signify new beginnings, growth and nature. A couple of well-known brands that use colour well are Virgin and BP. For me, the red of Virgin says adventure, fun and excitement, whereas the green in BP says light, nature and energy. Both very different messages, but equally powerful for the companies concerned.
Fonts
When you start to search for fonts you will find that there is a choice of hundreds! From gothic to script to comic sans and everything in between. What message does your choice of font say about your brand? Is it sophisticated and high quality? or do you want to be seen as fun, high energy and lively? It really can make a huge difference to what people will expect from your company.
Language
The language that you use is extremely important. Spelling mistakes and poor grammar may go unnoticed by many, but to some it will indicate poor attention to detail and could even be a deal breaker. Some people prefer you to get to the point by being bold and direct, whilst others will enjoy more elaborate language, overflowing with metaphors and similes. There is a well-known company in the beauty industry that always addresses it’s clients as Darling. I can’t stand it!! I don’t know why, but it makes my skin crawl… The company in question has a huge following so this approach clearly works for them. I guess I’m just not their ideal client, and that’s absolutely fine.
Imagery
Which is, of course, the most important part (don’t worry all you graphic designers, I’m only joking, it’s all important! but great photographs are high up the priorities). The photography that you use is an essential part of your company’s message. Make it too generic and people will just scroll past. Incorporate all of the above elements and your ideal clients will instinctively know your style and you will have their attention. Add to this the notion that a picture can say a thousand words and suddenly you have the ability to deliver a very clear message. Many companies use lifestyle images to suggest that the purchase of their product or service will improve your life – and it works exceptionally well! Who doesn’t want to have more money? do lots of fun stuff? or spend more time with their family?
People buy from people that they know, like and trust. By getting your branding right (I have lots of tools and resources to help with this) you will be able to become more visible, save yourself hours of time and attract your dream clients.
Julie is a specialist Personal Brand Photographer, who helps local businesses to become more visible, stand out from their competitors and to attract more of their dream clients by providing them with a bank of beautiful on-brand images.
“I didn’t realise how much my business needed this! Since having my photographs taken professionally, I feel so much more confident posting to social media and I am now attracting more new clients than ever. Thank you” Emily.
Creating new and engaging marketing content for your business can feel a bit like living on a hamster wheel. You might be dizzy but you can’t seem to stop moving. I’m not going to pretend that creating marketing content doesn’t take time. It does. What I will tell you is that it doesn’t need to take you as long as it is right now. Here are a few of the ways that I save myself time when I’m planning my own marketing content so you can swipe them for yourself.
Reuse your blog
I see lots of business owners who think that every post needs to be unique. They spend hours planning and coming up with ideas before creating brand new copy and images for every single bit. The truth is that your audience won’t see everything you post. Sharing the same message more than once keeps your marketing consistent and means that it’s more likely to sink in. If you’ve spent time crafting a good blog post, (or if I’ve written one for you) recycle it as much as you can – there’s more on how to do that here.
Choose a theme
When it comes to marketing, consistency is key. You might offer a lot of different products or services but if your marketing flits between all of them your audience will just get confused and back away. Choosing a theme for each month makes planning easier as your posts can talk about different aspects of the same thing. Your theme might be seasonal, for example winter sun holidays or summer skincare. If your business is in health or wellbeing you could focus on a particular problem. You could simply focus on a service that you want to promote.
Create a content calendar
I have a monthly content calendar that sets out the type of post I’m going to create. It includes things like videos, blogs and posts on different platforms. I share my blog at the same time each week and have regular monthly posts on things like business buzzwords or good copy that I’ve spotted online. It acts as a template, which means that I don’t have to spend loads of time pondering what to share, but I can still change things if I need to.
Don’t reinvent the wheel
You don’t have to create absolutely everything from scratch. I have lots of resources that other people have created and which I use in my own marketing. If you’ve got something similar, share it. Your audience will remember that you were the person who gave them that useful thing so they trust you more. Sharing popular social media posts also helps you to increase your reach. Just make sure that it’s relevant to your audience and that you credit the person who created the original.
Use a scheduler
Scheduling tools are a massive time saver because it means that you don’t have to find time to post every day. You can just block out content creation time and create everything in one go. Put it in your scheduler and you don’t have to think about it until next time. You could break your time down into planning, writing and image creation (or even smaller blocks than that). Doing it this way means that you don’t have a last-minute panic where you end up posting something random because it’s better than nothing.
If you really want to speed up your content creation, I can do it for you! Book your no-obligation discovery call here or sign up to my mailing list for hints and tips straight to your inbox.
Like a lot of you, I’m a Mum who has had her kids at home for the last couple of months. The last period of home school (if you can really call it that) taught me a lot. It meant that I felt a bit more prepared for the day-to-day reality. I’m not going to say that it was easy, because it wasn’t. There were a whole lot of days where the kids cried and I joined in. Sometimes it was even the other way round. Or I cried and they wandered off to play because they hate handwriting practice and geography is some form of torture. We got through it. What’s surprised me is how much I’m struggling with the back to school bit. Not because I don’t think they should be there, I do. It’s just been different and that’s what’s inspired this blog. If any of this resonates (or if you’ve got any advice) please leave a comment and let me know.
The schedule shift
Home learning meant that my working day started at 3.30ish and had shrunk down to a couple of hours. I thought that shifting back to my previous work pattern would be easy. The start of the day was fine. I made a cup of tea and turned on my laptop as I always have. That wasn’t the issue. It was the afternoons. A full working day suddenly felt too much. It was as if my brain had turned into a sulky teenager. I couldn’t work out why it had been easy to readjust last time but not now. Then it clicked.
I’ve been thrown in at the deep end
Last time the kids went back to school it was much more gradual. The phased return that applied to younger kids first meant that my youngest was the only one who went back before the summer holidays. It wasn’t an all or nothing situation where everything had gone back to normal. Then the summer holidays started as usual. By the time that school fully reopened for the Autumn term, it felt more like normal school. Somehow it meant that I could get back to work more easily. It made the difference between then and now so much harder to understand.
Procrastination
The strange this about this return to school is the sense of anticipation that came with it. I kept hearing that this would be it. There was no way they’d close the schools again (although I heard plenty of muttering to the contrary). It was a sign that life was getting back to normal. I don’t know why, but I felt as if I’d be able to leap back into work and everything would be as it was before. It wasn’t. Having shorter day had focused my mind. A full day found me procrastinating, unable to decide what needed to happen first.
How I’m dealing with it
I wish I could tell you that I’m back to full strength and have turned into a goal hitting dynamo. I haven’t. As I write this, I’ve just completed a bit of planning that would normally have taken me an hour. My lack of focus turned it into three afternoons of dragging myself back to my notebook. I’m getting there though. There’s a plan and my priorities are putting themselves into order. I’m gradually building my work muscles back up (just in time for the Easter holidays!). Plus, if I need a break, I take one. Even if it means a two-hour lunch break.
Are you getting back into work mode? How’s it going? Let me know in the comments!
I listened to Money Box on Radio 4 last week and they were talking about lasting power of attorney documents. Professionally I draft these documents (along with wills) so I know how invaluable these can be. What struck me the most was the lack of publicity power of attorney documents get compared to a will. They are just as important and for many people even more so than a will! So, this year I am making it my mission to spread the word.
Why should lasting power of attorney documents matter to me?
One family had to raise money through crowdfunding to a pay their mum’s day to day household bills as they couldn’t access her bank account. Their mum wasn’t old, she was in her 50’s. I am in my early 40’s now and 50 doesn’t seem so old as is once did. It was utterly heart-breaking listening to the lady speak about her situation. It also got me thinking back to one of my former colleagues, who in their mid-twenties seriously injured himself from diving into a shallow swimming pool whilst on holiday. He was in hospital and rehab for a long time. It took his family over 10 months to be able to manage his finances. Is this what you would want for your family?
You are never too young for a lasting power of attorney!
I don’t think any of us feel we would need a power of attorney in our 20’s, 30’s or 40’s. But people do, accident and illness happen. Rent, mortgages and household bills must be paid whether you live in on your own or you’re in a shared household with friends or family.
It will be ok, my family can help me.
No, if you become ill or unable to manage your own affairs the banks and building societies first duty is to protect the vulnerable person. Joint and single name accounts can and will be frozen.
Just because you live with someone, or are related to someone, or have a joint account with someone does not give you the legal right to manage their finances. The journalist and GMB presenter Kate Garroway has spoken about the difficulties she has had with her family finances in the last year. Her husband is still seriously ill in hospital with the after effects of COVID-19. She had no power of attorney in place. I am not sure she will have had her deputy order through yet either!
It’s ok they can just apply for a Deputy Order if they need to.
Yes, families can apply to the courts for a deputy order to manage a loved one’s finances but it is more expensive (more than double and have on going costs), time consuming (9 to 12 months +) and stressful (4 forms not 1).
Deputy orders are not as flexible as a power of attorney and often a deputy will have to re-apply to the court to carry out a particular course of action (e.g. house sale) where as an attorney can just get on with managing the finances and assets without having the extra cost and hassle. A deputy must pay recurring fees for ongoing supervision, where as an attorney doesn’t. The cost of all these fees come from the finances of the person they are supporting.
It’s easy to put off because you think it might be hard or you just don’t know where to start. There are a lot of good resources available on the internet and the government website www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney is a great starting point. You can draft the documents yourself or if you don’t have the time, energy or inclination there are people like myself who do it on a professional basis.
If you have a question no matter how small on this then give me a call 07920 061946. Let’s make sure it’s not your family having to crowdfund to keep the roof over their heads.
Kirsty’s note
Rosie O’Hanlon-Hills is the owner of Westcotes Wills, helping to make life easier for you and your family by drafting wills and lasting power of attorney documents you can all understand.
There are loads of reasons why you might have put off starting writing a business blog. One of the ones I hear a lot is the fact that it seems like a load of work for one piece of content. (Actually, it doesn’t have to be one piece of content – read this to find out how you can make it go further.) I won’t lie, writing a blog can take ages. The sight of a blank screen can make even my writing brain turn to fudge sometimes. If you tackle writing a blog as one big task it can be incredibly daunting. Breaking it down into manageable chunks makes the whole thing much less scary and more likely to happen. Here’s my plan for creating a great blog post.
Make a plan
Once you’ve chosen a topic (more on how to do that here), think about what information you need to share. Can you structure it as a list of tips, questions or is it more like a story? Think about what the central point of the post is going to be and write down the points that are essential for covering it properly. For a blog of around 500 words 4 or 5 points is ideal. Any more than that and you’ve got an epic post – or a whole new topic.
Talk through your topic
When I say talk, I mean it literally. This works really well if you freeze in front of a blank page but can explain yourself perfectly when you talk. You can record notes on your phone or use Word’s dictation feature for voice to text. It won’t give you the perfect blog post first time but it helps you capture your voice. You can see which phrases you naturally use and include them in your blog.
Create a first draft
This can be the scary bit, but if you’ve followed the steps so far it needn’t be. You can use your key phrases to create sentences. The points you set out in your plan are your subheadings – just write a few sentences under each. If you’ve talked a good game you might have more than you thought. The important thing to remember is that no-one has to read the first draft but you. Don’t worry about your grammar, just get everything on paper.
Edit your blog
Editing is your friend. Your first draft just gives you something to work with. Remember, you can’t edit a blank page. Use the spelling and grammar check tools that come with your Word document or Google doc as a first step. Then go through and read what you’ve written, preferably at least a day after you wrote it. Does it still make sense? Does everything relate back to your central topic? If not, take it out. You can also ask someone you trust to sense check it for you.
The finishing touches
The final touches are really a set of micro tasks. The key one from a writing perspective is your headline. There’s a whole load of headline theory out there, but when you’re starting out the main thing to remember is that it needs to tell the reader what to expect. Basically, think of a clickbait headline and do the opposite. Then you just need a good picture and remember to use your website’s SEO tool if you have one.
I hope this has inspired you to give blog writing a go. If you really can’t face it and just want to hand the whole thing over, get in touch and let’s see if I can help. Otherwise you can sign up to my mailing list for blogging and writing hints and tips to your inbox every month.
